University of Northwestern Athletics

The University of Northwestern will overhaul its current outdoor athletic complex during Summer 2014 with the Eagles varsity football, soccer, baseball, softball and tennis programs all having new surfaces to practice and compete on starting this fall. For more information specifically about the Soar Campaign for Eagle Excellence, visit unweagles.com/soar.

Follow the project's progress in the CONSTRUCTION PHOTO GALLERY.
Click to watch live video from the construction.
Click to see a 360 degree view of the project rendering.


Septebmer 9 -- We're fresh off the first weekend of games at the new football and soccer facility and it was quite the unofficial grand opening. That portion of the complex is complete - the field and stadium, complete with four locker

rooms, men's and women's restrooms, and a fully functional concession stand. Everything withstood the test of its capacity as 2,891 people were on hand to watch the Eagles football team defeat St. Olaf College in the university's first-ever night game.

Both the baseball and softball fields are nearing completion in terms of their turf installation, but the in-fill part of that project has yet to begin. Thanks to a second turf crew being on site last week, most of the turf was down on those two fields so people could envision what a baseball and softball gameday would look like last weekend. The foul posts were installed on Thursday of last week, and the in-fill will start being laid this week. With over 130 tons of crumb rubber being installed into the football and soccer field, one can imagine what goes into an even larger baseball field, not to mention the softball turf.

Two of the three complex entrances are open for business with the third entrance (west end between baseball and softball) still being worked on. The final concrete at the north gate was filled on Friday afternoon, 24 hours before the masses arrived on Saturday. The spirit plaza was also alive on Saturday, offering a great location for tailgating and meeting up with old friends and alumni. Along with turf and concrete, trees are beginning to make their presence along the outside fences as well as in sections adjacent to the north bleacher entrance and the tennis courts. Speaking of tennis, we're waiting for the 28-day settling period that the asphalt requires to come to an end before laying a top layer and paint to that surface.
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August 20 -- We're five days into fall sport practices, and the football/soccer field is fully operational and has been in use from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. So far, the student-athlete reaction to the playing surface has been extremely positive. The adjacent stadium and bleacher structure is nearing its own completion in anticipation of the September 5-6 home-opening weekend. The locker rooms are nearly done with only tiling and final touch-ups needed in addition to installing shower heads, faucet fixtures and toilets. Northwestern is scheduled to take possession of the locker rooms on September 3.

The press box is set in place, but internal wiring and final bleacher work are still taking place before a certificate of occupancy can be issued in that area. Installation of the turf on the baseball field, a process that will take approximately three weeks, has begun. Once the baseball field is finished, the turf group will move on to the final piece of the puzzle, the softball field. While the football/soccer field is already a gem, the baseball and softball surfaces will truly be unique in that they will be 100 percent turfed with no dirt, meaning that the mound, batter's box and base paths will all have an artificial turf surface. Gone are the days of getting the winter frost out of the ground, a feature that should put the Northwestern teams on their respective fields sooner than most squads in the area.

Around 60 trade workers continue to swarm the job site on a daily basis working on items such as turf, tiling, piping, concrete installation, bleacher work, and so on. 
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August 6 -- The football team will be on campus one week from today and will take to its new field for practice beginning next Thursday, August 14. We're officially one month away from our opening weekend of home games as two home men's soccer dates have been added on Friday and Saturday, September 5 and 6, while the football team will play its first-ever night game at 7 p.m. on the 6th to break in the new stadium. The bleacher system - complete with purple facing - is expected to be fully installed by the end of next week, while the turf crew will shift its focus to the baseball field at the same time.

The press box, which was constructed near Alexandria, Minn., was delivered and installed today to make the stadium look more complete. Watch a video (2:12 long) of the press box installation here.

Currently, trade workers are not only laboring outside but also indoors as well. The locker rooms are being tiled and painted and electrical work continues to take place for the many watts that will travel throughout the stadium with lights, scoreboards, etc. Concrete slabs are being constructed to form the spirit plaza while over 100 trees -- from our friends and alumni at Wolcyn Tree Farm in Cambridge, Minn. -- are being planted around the facility's perimeter.
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July 28 – We’re approximately two weeks away from the football/soccer/lacrosse field being completed, just in time for fall student-athletes to start practices in mid-August. The green artificial turf at that facility will be fully laid by the middle of this week, and the final week and a half of work on the turf will include stitching in numbers, logos, and the end zone artwork along with laying the in-fill. The white yard lines and yellow soccer perimeter lines are pre-stitched on the turf product that came from Georgia. A total of 41 bags of turf, each containing a five-yard-wide roll that stretches nearly 50 yards in length, are needed for the field.

The tennis courts’ asphalt layer was laid late last week and as we mentioned in the last post, is now in a 28-day setting stage before the final colored layers are installed in late August. The laying of concrete is wrapping up on the softball dugouts, a step that is already complete for the baseball field, which is seeing its 20-foot outfield fence go up in left field. Once the turf crew finishes on the football/soccer/lacrosse surface, they will move over to baseball for a couple weeks before wrapping up their time on campus on the softball field.

Framing, electrical and piping work continues inside the stadium where the locker rooms, concession stand and bathrooms will be housed. Only two of the 23 light poles remain to be installed in their final places along the east side of the softball field.
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July 14 – While it’s not quite Transformation Tuesday, let’s go for Makeover Monday. As we said last week, the progress on our outdoor field construction is going to be come visibly noticeable on a weekly basis now. We’re 30 days away from the football team’s arrival, with the remaining fall sport athletes from our soccer, volleyball, cross country and golf teams coming on campus 32 days from now.

Construction crews have made the east side of the job site – the six tennis courts and football/soccer field and its corresponding stadium – their top priority. The asphalt that will cover the tennis courts is scheduled to be poured next week, and then requires 28 days to set before the final coats of top surface and color are placed on top to make that portion of the construction complete. As you can see from the color sample in the photo gallery, the outside of the six courts will be green, while the inside of each court will be purple with white lines outlining the official dimensions. Three of the courts will also be viewable by terraced concrete that will provide an official spectator area, which is also included in the latest photo gallery updates. The tennis facility’s fence posts are in with the actual fencing being installed these next couple of weeks.

As far as the football/soccer field, which will also play home to the Northwestern women’s lacrosse team in the spring, the initial base layer of subgrade rock has been laid – the first of three – on top of the dirt with the two remaining finer rock layers to be added before the big T-word, turf, will arrive at the end of this week! While the new playing surface will certainly transform what has been dirt and rock to a more colorful look, the turf’s installation will take a couple weeks as stitching and in-fill work is done. The scoreboard has been set in its new home along Lydia Avenue, right next to one of two nets that hang behind the newly installed goalposts to keep field goal and high kicked soccer balls inside the facility’s perimeter. A prefabricated press box is scheduled to arrive during the first week of August with bleacher installation taking place at the same time.

The running track alongside the field is complete, allowing Northwestern’s track and field sprinters and jumpers to have a straightaway to practice at on campus for the first time!

The baseball and softball dugouts and backstops – all framed with concrete – are in. Like the similar walls for tennis, these concrete barriers go eight feet into the ground! The whole facility is set up for proper water drainage as well and is prepared to take on the worst flooding in 500 years, should that ever happen. Once the base layers of rock have been installed on the football/soccer field, the rock installation will begin on the baseball and softball surfaces.

Of the approximately 55 bodies that are on site each day right now, there are currently just as many workers inside the stadium as are outside. Inside, trade workers are focusing their efforts on everything from concrete walls to electrical and plumbing installation. Locker rooms, public restrooms, a training room and concession stand will all be housed inside the gold exterior walls.
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July 7 – We are less than six weeks away from the start of fall training camps with football reporting on August 13 and the remaining fall teams arriving on campus on August 13 in preparation for their 2014 seasons. With that being said, things are on the move as the outdoor facility renovation continues. We continue to plan on our football and soccer teams having the new turf field ready to practice on come mid-August. As has been the case the last two years, Roseville’s Langton Park will also serve as an alternate practice facility for the soccer squads, offering a natural grass surface.

As you can see by the most recent images and the continuous video feed, the six tennis courts are nearest to completion, which has been the plan all along. The courts should be finished by the end of the month, a time when we should be seeing green turf on the football/soccer field. While seeing turf laid out on the field will certainly be exciting, the process of installing the turf to make it game-ready takes some time with stitching and laying giant bags upon bags of rubber in-fill. The bleacher system for the football/soccer facility is starting to take shape, which, in addition to the lights, gives it more of a stadium feel. All of the lights for both tennis and the football/soccer field have been installed and the black fencing that forms the outer perimeter of those playing surfaces is also currently being put into place. The installation of the football goal posts will be complete early this week.

Concrete retaining walls that make up the backstops for both baseball and softball continue to be poured. The concrete (over six feet deep!) that will serve as the foundations for the baseball dugouts was recently poured.

The entire project will be complete by homecoming weekend, October 10-12, so mark that date (especially the 11th for the ribbon cutting and home games for football and both soccer teams) on your calendar.
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June 24 -- Tennis, the first facility that is scheduled to be completed, is looking more and more like a potential set of six tennis courts as grading (flattening, packing) continues before the final asfalt layers will be laid. The continued rain showers that have pounded the Twin Cities area in recent weeks, has made its presence known on the job site, but work continues to take place on daily basis as the stadium locker rooms continue to be worked on with roofing, painting, wiring, etc. A utility building, which will sit in between the stadium and Lydia Avenue, is currently being framed after the building's concrete footings were poured last week.

As for the baseball and softball facilities, fence posts and the concrete walls that make up the barriers down the foul lines continue to be formed and poured, with the retaining wall along those lines going more than six feet into the ground! The foundations are also being poured for the football goal posts.
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June 13 -- The separate facilities within the Reynolds Field complex are starting to take their own shape. 12 of the 23 light poles have been installed and are hard to miss for the eyes that have been trained to a natural light-only view of the old facility. Fence posts have been installed along the campus road along the football/soccer field and tennis courts. While this project still has over three months to go for 100 percent completion, those two facilties will be the first to be wrapped up. Each field and the tennis courts all have retaining walls to make the entire complex's border - those have been completed. In addition to the very visable retaining walls along Lincoln Drive, the curved outfields of the baseball and softball fields each have a retaining wall that have been installed as their boundary.

In addition to the more visible parts of the project, underground electrical conduit and mechanical lines are being put into place, while a utility shed is being constructed on the south side of the locker room facility, close to Lydia Avenue.
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June 5 -- Late is better than never, right? A construction video camera has been installed on the Ericksen Center, so you can watch the project's progress all day long from your desk!
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May 29 – We have officially gone three-dimensional as the first building structure has started to take an early shape on the job site. To gain a better perspective on the most recent updates, take a peek at the most recent images in the photo gallery.
 The 12-inch concrete walls that will house four locker rooms, a training room, restrooms and a concession stand are currently being installed. In the middle of two layers of thick concrete is a couple inches of insulation. The pre-built wall sections, roughly 15 feet across, have been constructed in nearby Maple Grove, Minnesota, before being hauled across town to Northwestern’s Roseville campus to be permanently placed by a crane. The bottom three feet of these walls, which is currently exposed, will be secured underground.

The new Reynolds Field complex’s boundaries are also shaping up with several retaining walls being built. The wall lining the football/soccer field’s northeast corner is finished while stone is currently being laid around the six tennis courts. The project’s plans also call for retaining walls just outside the baseball and softball field outfield fences.

In addition to safety, being environmentally smart is a big area of focus for both Northwestern and PCL Construction, the project’s general contractor. Water retention and drainage systems are currently being installed, taking excess rainfall and melted snow through giant pipes that are over six feet in diameter to nearby Little Lake Johanna.

A late add-on to the project was lights for all of the complex’s facilities. In conjunction with Musco Sports Lighting, the footings for 23 poles the have been secured into the ground throughout the park. Those lights will get their first usage on September 6, when the Northwestern football team hosts St. Olaf in its 2014 opener with kickoff scheduled for 7 p.m.

If you drive on the campus road, you’ll notice that the gold eagle sculpture has moved to what will be its final resting place across from the Robertson Student Center. The eagle, which weighs an estimated four tons, will welcome not only cars driving past, but spectators walking through the complex’s east entrance will stroll right past one of Reynolds Field’s most identifiable landmarks. 
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May 16 -- With most of the project design complete (including the latest - press box exterior, turf stitching, etc.), we have a 360-degree view of the project rendering thanks to PCL Construction.


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May 13 -- A few noticable things have taken place on the job site. Mount Northwestern, the massive dirt and sand pile that was erected to make way for new utilities piping, as been flattened as the new sewer and other utilities have been successfully installed. Construction of the retaining wall at what will be the complex's new east entrance has begun. This is where the corner of the football and soccer field meet the walkway. If you're been on campus in the last few days, you'll notice that the golden eagle statue has also been unearthed. Fear not, Mr. Eagle isn't going very far. As a matter of fact, the statue's new resting place will be approximately 20 feet from the former foundation.

The old Reynolds Field baseball site is being excavated with the dugouts, backstop, outfield grass and stairways all unearthed now. Footings are being installed for both the stadium and its lighting system over the next couple weeks. To the naked eye, this project is going to make progress in a hurry. Football reports in three months!
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April 21 -- The recent snowfalls in the Twin Cities area haven't slowed down the project. If you drive on campus, you'll notice that the large piles of dirt and sand have grown as a trench has been dug to make way for new sewer lines. A new water main is also being installed while sub-grading is taking place behind the old softball field. The dirt piles are going to remain -- at least for now-- as construction crews continue to load and haul soil and debris from the site demolition. Testing and inspections of the new utilities will take place later this week before PCL prepares the subgraded land for the foundations for the new fields.
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  April 9 -- Now the old Reynolds Field complex is really starting to look like a construction site, as can be seen in the photo gallery. Trenches are being dug and several large piles of dirt are noticable as one drives onto campus from Lydia Avenue. The only remaining and functional part of the complex is the baseball field, which will remain in the athletics department's possession until April 28. The softball field has been turned over to the construction company to allow for utilities excavation and site grading

With dirt being moved, the football/soccer and softball scoreboards have come down, as have the football goal posts. The scoreboards, all three -- football/soccer, softball, and baseball -- are all being put in storage for the summer and will be reinstalled towards the end of the project. Tree stumps that remain from last week's mass removal are being ground down and the storage garage on the facility's west side and the softball dugouts and their foundations will also be taken down this week.
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April 1 -- Any structure that had to do with the old football and soccer facility came down today, meaning the press box, bleachers and concession stand are all gone. See the actual progress being made throughout the spring and summer in the construction photo gallery.
 

March 27 -- The final details and schematics of the project are being finalized. Northwestern staff and representatives from Perkins + Will, the project's architecture firm, have been meeting for the last two years to discuss the needs of the facility. The January 16 construction release announced that PCL Construction, Inc. would be the project's general contractor. In the Twin Cities metro area, PCL is most recently known for its work on the University of Minnesota's $7.2 million Siebert Field baseball complex, finished in April 2013. Since that date, Northwestern has partnered with UBU Sports for the artificial turf that will be installed on the football/soccer, baseball and softball fields.

UBU Sports is a leading brand of synthetic turf surfaces for usein a variety of sporting events, which is a benefit to Northwestern as the university will use two different types of turf for its playing surfaces. UBU Sports' fields serve as ground gear for teams ranging from professional franchises, collegiate and major indoor arena leagues to local high schools. UBU will be the turf installed in the University of Minnesota's upgrades to TCF Bank Stadium to host Minnesota Vikings football games and the Vikings will install UBU products in its new stadium. UBU Sports' Speed S5-M system was used at MetLife Stadium for the 2014 Super Bowl.

A formal groundbreaking ceremony for the project will take place on April 28, but the actual demolition of the current athletic fields, starting with the area around the existing football field, has already begun. Trees are being taken down along the Lydia Avenue side of the existing complex to make room for the new fields. If you're worried about the reduction of trees on campus, fear not as we're required to plant three new trees for every one removed.

Below is a panoramic view of Reynolds Field on March 26. A webcam is expected to be installed in the coming weeks so the public can view the project's progress.